Ludwig Meidner - Post-War Depression

A particularly difficult period of Meidner's time in exile began with the end of the war. His financial situation worsened due to the cessation of assistant programs for Jewish refugees, his isolation as an artist increased, and he was profoundly shaken by the horrors of the Holocaust, the true magnitude of which now became evident. A few days prior to German capitulation he wrote in a letter to Siegbert Prawer, one of his former pupils in Cologne:

"We are again living through historically momentous days, as we did 26 years ago – which you of course did not experience – days bringing to an end a punishment that has possibly been one of the harshest in the course of human history. The mood in London during the last two weeks has been dominated by justified outrage over the horrors in Germany. These have now been publically revealed in dreadful photos, images that make complete nonsense of my cycle 'Massacres in Poland', on which I have been working for nearly 2 years. These images now seem appear harmless and even homely when compared with the published documentation of the ghastly reality. One cannot even begin to give these events enough publicity. They unfortunately bear witness to the end of the age of humanity and the beginning of a barbarism the calamitous consequences of which we cannot yet predict. One must go far back in history, as far back as Nebuchadnezzar, to encounter anything similar, and then of course only on a small scale. As every harm inflicted on even a sparrow must be atoned for, so will the Germans as a whole have to atone and repent for their crimes."